Report 656
Report #656 Skillset: Druidry Skill: Roots Org: Hartstone Status: Rejected Aug 2011 Furies' Decision: We believe burrower protection does have uses and thus disagree with the problem presented. Furthermore, we did not like any of the proposed solutions. Problem: As is, Roots is a nearly useless skill. Designed to prevent and punish burrowers, it's irrelevant because burrowing is not a prevalent tactic, and I do not predict it ever will be due to its slow nature, and the fact that distort stops burrowing. Even assuming burrowing happened roots doesn't stop you from moving away after you've been unearthed, and we have no way of doing so. As well as that, roots stops working when you are burrowed to the third level of underground terrain, which makes it even worse assuming someone is burrowing around. Solution #1: Make roots an active room damage attack on enemies, similar to tempest/hailstorm/boulderblast/pyromancy, in addition to its current effects Solution #2: Have roots be a passive demesne effect that heals health on the demesne timer, as you absorb nutrients fromthe soil. This could additionally block burrowing in the druid's room. Solution #3: In addition to Roots' current digging up effect, have roots prone personal enemies in the room when cast, possibly with a chance of breaking limbs. Player Comments: ---on 7/14 @ 22:11 writes: I'm fishing for ideas here. I like the idea of a passive effect, but passive offensive effects have been denied before. Hence, Solution 2. I think that a healing ability wouldn't be too outrageous, and it gives us an effect that visibly tics when there are not enemies in the room, so that we can time our demesnes in the same manner as mages. Solutions 1 and 3 are intended to give us a bit more group aid. Sol 1 would be a nice addition to bring our overall utility closer up to that of mages, and solution 3 (which I'm not as keen on) is intended to aide the group with things such as trample. If you have any other ideas for what roots could do, please come forward, it needs something! ---on 7/14 @ 22:11 writes: Similarly, admins, I think someone mentioned that the prevaling opinion is that roots shouldn't ever be a passive effect. Is this something I should keep in mind? ---on 7/19 @ 03:39 writes: I'm not in love with the idea of passive healing past max health, but I really want to see druids get a demense tic they can time things off of. It's one of those things that every demense user should have. I'd personally recomend something like making roots visible on every tic regardless of the presence of enemies and allow an active "dig in all 9 layers" ability similar to what geomancers get with the taint wyrm. ---on 8/7 @ 06:01 writes: I have no problem at all with introducing something to Druidry to help melders time their casting better, so go for it with the second solution. In regards to the first solution, I'd likewise adore bringing us on par with mages with a room-wide on-demand damaging skill, though perhaps keep Roots stronger when used on actual burrowed people and a bit weaker when applied to people above ground? Also, please, asphyxiation damage or something. Choking roots to wrangle people rather than more physical damage types. As for the third, prone with a chance for a broken limb/balance loss would be grand since people just standing immediately up again after casting would be meh. ---on 8/11 @ 13:28 writes: I've always thought it was weird that druids didn't have the area attacks that mages do. All three of these sound fine provided that the healing effect isn't made too large. ---on 8/11 @ 14:12 writes: I would support solution 1 with the caveat that it only works on ground level. It would be very nice to see druids get a room damage attack comparable to the mages, basically agree with Wobou that any of these sound fine. ---on 8/12 @ 06:58 writes: Well, if it does become a room damage attack, that should be its only effect and should only work at ground level, scaled down to the number of enemies in the room. It should necessarily lose its ability to damage burrowers to put it on the same level as the mage damage skills. ---on 8/12 @ 21:31 writes: As I understood it, the proposed roots attack would be demense only, ie. you could only cast it while melded with roots up. Which would be different, but not unbalanced with the mage attacks, even if it kept the passive unrooting of burrowers. That would be less useful in certain conflicts where melding is difficult or movement across the area is frequent (ie. when on the offense on elemental and ethereal raids) so I can also see wanting to make it seperate from/replace the meld effect ---on 8/14 @ 22:20 writes: Unlike the mage's planes, where the maximum number of terrain levels that need to be taken care of is three (air on all but catacombs, burrowing on fire and earth, diving on water), druids need to stop enemies from moving around on four levels of terrain (flying, burrowing, trees, ground). If roots dug up in addition to a room attack, it would be a room only effect, and work in the same manner as the current roots room skill: Only digging down to the second level, not pulling anyone below that up at all. The mage attacks are in addition to mage's superior passives. An addition of that ability simply makes sense, and won't come into play much, as distort stops burrowing.